Watched council again. There was another sudden surprise in that the gas station wasn’t part of the property that was being rezoned (it will be on another part of the property). This time it was the councilors that were unprepared as they had spent all that time researching and reading reports on gasoline leak prevention. So what was the vote all about?

A parking lot. They want to move a man-made wetland in order to make a parking lot. All of the decisions about the Costco and gas bar had already been made years ago. This time, it was the councilors who had the off-topic speeches.

This heated debate has been going on for well over a month. A lot of time was spent by groups on both sides preparing speeches, organizing opposition and supporters. This was all for nothing as nobody knew what the actual debate was about until the very last minute.

This was caused by one of two things:

1. Bad organization. The City is notorious for doing everything behind closed doors. It really concerns me that they can be this disorganized. Is this is a result of nepotism and cronyism? Do they have people that can actually do their job at City Hall? If new information came in at the last minute, wouldn’t it have been best to postpone the vote so people could be more prepared?
2. Intentional misdirection. They may have intentionally misdirected the opposition to wear them down. I sincerely hope this is not the case as it is not an honest way to debate things. Yes, some of the opposition has been misleading people, but the debate has raised some serious issues about the need for better urban planning.

I’ll be firing off an e-mail to the mayor about this. I’ll post the letter and any responses I get from him (if any).

3 Comments »

Saw a press release for Fredericton’s new doctor recruitment web site that’s available at: http://www.gofredericton.ca/

I then imagined myself as a doctor looking to set up shop somewhere. I’m first greeted with a fairly blank page that has the YFC flight status and the weather. I’m happy to see an efficient airport with on-time flights so all the donated organs will arrive nice and fresh.

I read around the site a bit and see that it has all the artsy and cultury stuff that I need to entertain my highly educated brain. Looks like I’ll fit right in. I want to see what my peers have to say so I click on the link titled “what our doctors say” and get this:

Maybe someone should make sure they finish the web site before making the press release for it. Come on, we can do better than this.

No comments »

I was excited when I saw this in the Gleaner:

http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/rss/article/640542

Since I can’t copy & paste the article in, I’ll go over some of the points it makes.

1. Wi-fi – hopefully they put this on all their fleet. I’d be curious to see if it works at the very ends of the runs. Route 18 goes all the way past the Bucket Club, which is far away from their main transmitter near Two Nations Crossing. According to the Gleaner, “wireless fibre” is used to connect the Fred-e-Zone access point on the bus to the main part of the network. As “wireless fibre” doesn’t actually exist, a little research shows that it uses a proprietary technology called iBurst. Hopefully they will put it in their clunkers as well as their newer buses.

2. Geolocation – Hopefully they get all the kinks out of it in Moncton first. It’s nice to have it using Google Maps, but that is kinda useless if you’re at the stop waiting and only have a phone. The easiest way to do this is to have an IVR that you can call on the phone and to tag every bus stop with a unique number that can be entered by the rider.

3. BusCam – Awesome! I hope they hurry up and make it public, there’s so much fun to be had with that.

4. Two Nations Crossing trial extension (wasn’t in that article, but is here) – great news that they aren’t going to kill it right away. Too bad they aren’t willing to extend the hours to run until 10pm.

No comments »

For the first time ever, I watched Fredericton City Council on Rogers TV.  I was only interested in the presentation about the woodlot and the objections that were given so I skipped through the rest of the meeting.

Mayor Brad Woodside set some ground rules at the beginning. He wanted no mention of the Facebook group and he insisted that if someone ahead of you already made the same point, please don’t waste everybody’s time by repeating it.

The meeting started with the declaration that it was only about rezoning for the gas bar. The applicant changed their mind about filling in a portion of Corbett Brook (because the Department of the Environment told them they couldn’t). This means that the original approval of the Costco from 2005 was still on the books and therefore not for discussion. This late notice about the change left many people surprised and the made most of the presentations off-topic.  The actual area for discussion is seen here: (sorry it’s blurry, it came from a screen capture)

The purple area is the current wetland and 30m buffer zone. It is not being removed, just moved. As described below, it is not environmentally sensitive:

Then came the presentations. I was expecting a lot of theatrics and grandstanding, which the opposition groups had done in the past. I was pleasantly surprised that there was absolutely none of that. All of the presenters were respectful and well spoken.

Despite all of the people presenting, there wasn’t one single argument stating any facts as to why there shouldn’t be a gas bar at that site. The closest they were able to give was that the gas bar increases the possibility of a risk to the wetland. They didn’t know what that actual risk would be, if there even was one. They also said they weren’t aware of how a modern gas station’s leak detection and monitoring solution would work.

The rest of the presentations were significantly off-topic. They were debating the merits of box stores in general, the recreational use of the woodlot, peak oil and how it will become too expensive to drive to Costco, doom and gloom caused by drive-to destinations as well as the First nations claims to the land.

There was one presentation from a retired UNB Engineering professor who said he represented the silent majority.The spirit of his presentation was similar to previous postings here in that there is balance in the overall woodlot development.

The proponents, represented by the Terrain Group, then made a very brief presentation clearing up some inaccuracies that were in some of the previous presentations. Two of their main points were that the provincial department of the environment still has to approve the gas station and that the area is not in Fredericton’s Wellfield Protection Zone so there will be no risk to drinking water should there be a major leak.

The presentations ended and the councilors brought up two points. The first was that they wanted to be able to review the facts on the actual risk of a fuel leak so they asked for some documents from the proponents. The second was that an Irving gas station had already been approved on Bishop Dr near Lian St. This is also near a wetland.

Hopefully council will make an appropriate decision based on hard evidence and good data.

2 Comments »

I saw this out of the corner of my eye while walking along Queen St. The picture is of the sign that’s in front of the construction site for the new convention centre.

Zoomed in a bit:

There hasn’t been an escaltor in the city since the Zellers closed downtown (SNB is there now, but they removed it).

Now we’ll be just like Saint John with their fancy moving stairs

1 Comment »

5. Lonewater St.

Not only is it not anywhere near water, it’s also the name of the local drug rehab facility. Hopefully people won’t get them confused.

4. Vanier Industrial Drive.

Believe it or not, there are actually houses on it. There aren’t any industrial operations on it, despite what the name would lead you to believe.  It is also leads people to believe that it only goes to the industrial park, which isn’t the case.

3. Ring Rd.

In order for a road to be called “Ring”, it must actually be a ring, not a crescent. Fail.

2. Airport Rd.

This road must lead to the airport, right? Nope, not since 1951. Now how many tourists will have their GPS send them there instead of the real airport?

1. Woodside Dr.

I’m not going to comment on this one

2 Comments »

If the driver starts the bus moving before you’ve had a chance to sit down, be careful of what you grab onto, it just might not be connected:

(photo taken 2009-04-08 on fleet #8992)

I also saw one of those “Ambulance rides are now FREE” ads yesterday (2009-04-08 on fleet #8851).  This comes after the NB Government decided to reintroduce the ambulance fees. This is just another example of an out-of-date ad.

No comments »

Saw this great poem about Fredericton’s Prospect St.

http://wreckagefoundfloating.blogspot.com/2009/03/ode-to-prospect-street.html

No comments »

The woodlot debate rages on in Fredericton. The mayor’s Facebook group appears to be the latest place where there is debate. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of misinformation being used in the debate.

Many posters to the group insist that the Costco is going to destroy the entire wetland. That simply is not true. Costco is only altering a small part of a wetland. It won’t destroy it. (site plan)

Many of the other arguments also apply to other locations where a Costco could go. The provisions for surface runoff (and drainage) apply no matter where a Costco would be placed, it will cost money no matter what, however, the city will get that money back in the form of property taxes it collects in the future. The same applies to any building in the city, even your house. The road leading to it, water / sewer and drainage all had to be paid for by the city.

They also claim that there will be a great increase in flooding because the wetlands naturally absorb rainfall. They don’t mention the fact that the wetlands are included with the 50% of the woodlot which will be preserved and not filled in or paved over. The wetlands will still be there to do their job. If the woodlot wasn’t developed, the runoff and flooding would still have to be dealt with elsewhere in the city. Also, the woodlot is at the top of the hill so it doesn’t absorb runoff from anywhere other than itself. (Google maps, terrain map of area)

Many Costco location alternatives were proposed, however, the majority of them are unsuitable. The North side of Bishop Dr. isn’t big enough, so it would have to go onto the South side, which is bordered by the UNB woodlot and another wetland. Two Nations Crossing would be an even worse location as the traffic infrastructure wouldn’t be able to handle the massive amount of traffic coming from the highways.

A number of posters on the Facebook group claim that they like to use the woodlot to let their dogs run free. Unfortunately, loose dogs are terrible for environmentally sensitive areas as they disturb wildlife, dig up habitats and their feces contaminate the water. (referenced here) For some reason, the environmentalists aren’t protesting the fact that dogs are currently allowed to run loose on the woodlot. This situation will be improved with the addition of an off-leash dog park which will be built at the site of the Grant-Harvey Centre (on the woodlot).

As stated in the previous posting about this issue, developement on the woodlot can be slowed or even stopped by using the correct approach. Demand better use of the land we currently have. Demand that buildings downtown have minimum heights instead of maximums. Demand that the train station be torn down and replaced with high density buildings. It is actions like this that will slow down development by making the woodlot less valuable. Don’t waste your time trying to prevent current projects from happening, instead spend it by looking at the long term goals. The 50% of the woodlot will only be fully developped after 50 years, that’s plenty of time to spend making the city make better use of existing land.

1 Comment »

Now their transit system not only has wi-fi, it has live real-time GPS data displayed on a Google map:
http://www.codiactranspo.ca/GoBus.htm (for best results, choose the Express route)

Oh well, at least our buses have a nicer paint scheme (anything’s nicer than pink and purple wavy stripes):

Ugh....

Update: Looks like a driver’s a little lost:

Update again: Here’s one that has 3 lost drivers

2 Comments »